Tech giants take action on ad click fraud

Some of the biggest digital companies have banded together to take action on the rising tide of ad click fraud.

Some of the biggest digital companies have banded together to take action on the rising tide of ad click fraud.

Companies including Facebook and Yahoo! have created a blacklist that aims to block fake ad traffic, according to The Register.

The program is called the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) pilot, and could cut a significant portion of web traffic by blocking bot traffic. “The newly shared blacklist identifies web robots that are being run in data centres but that avoid detection by the IAB/ABC International Spiders and Bots List,” Johnsen told the Register.

“By pooling our collective efforts and working with industry bodies, we can create strong defences against those looking to take advantage of our ecosystem. We look forward to working with the TAG Anti-fraud working group to turn this pilot program into an industry-wide tool” he continued.

The pilot group asked for publishers, advertisers and tech companies to come together to counter the threat: “Tackling ad fraud will require everyone in the industry to take an active role,” Neal Mohan, Vice President, Video and Display Advertising Products, Google said on the TAG site. “We’re excited by the collaborative spirit we’ve seen during the launch of this initiative and look forward to working with everyone in the ecosystem to remove fraud from advertising.”

A report on ZDNet notes that a recent estimate of overall web traffic found that only 41 percent of web traffic originates from humans, with 23 percent coming from “bad bots” and 36 percent coming from good bots.